1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to global communications networks, and more specifically to delivering an easy to use virtual reality environment to take advantage of existing technologies and global communications networks such as the Internet without requiring the use of computers nor computer literacy. This invention includes an artificial intelligence assistant which receives commands through a speech recognition device, adapts to each individual user, and provides customized guidance to the user. The intelligent assistant projects human-like features and behaviors appropriate to the preferences of its user and appears as a virtual person to the user.
2. Discussion of the Background
In 1996, industry analysts propounded that, with 40 million people connected around the world, $1 billion in electronic sales, and over 10 million web addresses, the Internet as a commercial medium had come of age; 25 years after its birth under the auspices of the United States Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency as a small network (ARPANET) intended to promote the sharing of super-computers among researchers in the United States.
Five years after the experts accepted the Internet as a commercial medium, the Internet today is a chaotic, overpopulated road, accessible only to the relatively few people who own and can operate computers. The virtual environment object of this invention provides a means to bypass the computer dependency for accessing today's Internet.
Today's Internet is generally deficient in several ways. First, it is very generalized in the information it provides. The Web pages are not designed for a particular person, but rather, in the best of cases, for a particular group. They do not rely on the personalized characteristics, needs or criteria of the specific user in order to narrow the choices of selection to be offered to the user. This requires excess time on the part of the user to browse through the site in order to make the proper selection. With existing search engines and query tools, users must interact with the Internet using a limited set of pre-established interactions. In addition, all users must navigate through the pre-set paths and iterations even when the bulk of the information accessible via those paths would not be applicable to that user's needs nor to the user's level of familiarity with the available information. This shortcoming is particularly significant when one considers provisions of product information over the Internet. With worldwide access, customers from geographically diverse locations will have different requirements on available product sets when interacting with the same Web site. Different users will also have different interaction parameters with respect to the level of product detail that they require. For instance, when shopping for a camera, a professional photographer will approach the interaction with more detailed specification constraints than the user who is shopping for a camera as a gift.
As a result of the foregoing shortcomings, the Internet has modest penetration levels for a mass medium. ACNielsen NetWatch's October 1999 survey shows a penetration rate of 38% in Canada with the United States sharing second place with Australia and Singapore at 25% of the total population.
Nonetheless, the Internet has the potential to become a significant global mass medium for conducting business, collecting, and exchanging information, communication, and entertainment. International Data Corporation (“IDC”) estimates that the number of Internet users worldwide will grow from approximately 142.2 million at the end of 1998 to approximately 502.4 million by the end of 2003, representing a compound annual growth rate of 29%.
As Internet usage continues to grow, advertisers and electronic commerce marketers are increasingly using the Web to locate customers, advertise and facilitate transactions. The Internet allows advertisers to more precisely target desired audiences while tracking impression levels, user demographics, and advertisement effectiveness. In addition, the Internet allows advertisers to interact more effectively with users and to more easily obtain relevant data about buying patterns, preferences and demands.
According to Forrester Research, the total worldwide dollar value of Internet advertising will increase from $3.3 billion in 1999 to $24.1 billion by 2003. Moreover, according to the IDC, the percentage of Internet users buying goods and services on the Internet will increase from approximately 22% in 1998 to approximately 36% in 2003, and the total value of goods and services purchased directly on the Web will increase from approximately $27.0 billion in 1998 to approximately $842.7 billion by 2003.
One of the factors slowing the wider deployment of the Internet is that it requires an expertise level which is still quite high. Today's computers are difficult to use and require significant levels of expertise, generally built over many years of computer use. Also, non-computer users are quite often intimidated by the technology of computers. Current Internet products require that their users have a certain level of familiarity with a computer, the medium, its language, and its unspoken rules. This trend is becoming more entrenched with each new advance in technology, since technology is being used to substitute for human interaction between the Web site and its users.
This combination of factors results in more than half of the world population bewildered, uninterested in using and enjoying one of the best technologies developed in the twentieth century. The general population is being excluded from the Internet because it requires them to understand computers and learn computer skills and technological language. Moreover, to use the Internet, users have to pay more for a personal computer, Internet connections and related requirements, than for a television set. In addition, there is a natural, human fear of failure when challenged to master new skills. This group excluded from the Internet represents every segment of the general population—men and women, young and old, professionals and non-professionals.
The Internet is a large network made up of a number of smaller networks. It is made up of more than 100,000 interconnected networks in over 100 countries, comprised of commercial, academic and government networks. It has become commercialized into a worldwide information highway and data base, containing information on every subject known to humankind.
Thus, the Internet and its World Wide Web (“WWW” or “Web”) system have become an important means of providing access for many users to vast amounts of information stored on the servers which make up the Internet. By way of background, the WWW is an Internet facility that links documents locally and remotely. The Web document is called a Web page, and links in the page let users jump from one page to another page (hyperlink) whether the pages are stored on the same server or on servers around the world. The pages are accessed and read via a Web browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The WWW has become the center of Internet activity since, among other reasons, Web pages, containing text, graphics, audio and video are easily accessible via a standard web browser. The WWW contains the largest collection of online information in the world, and the amount of information is increasing. Current schemes for accessing a Web document require typing in the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address of the home page in the Web browser. From there, the user starts surfing through the Internet via hypertext links to other documents that can be stored on the same server or on a server anywhere in the world.
The fundamental Web format is a text document embedded with “HTML” tags that provide the formatting of the page as well as the hypertext links (URLs) to other pages. HTML codes are common alphanumeric characters that can be typed with any text editor or word processor. Numerous Web publishing programs provide a graphical interface for Web page creation and automatically generate the codes. Many word processors and publishing programs also export their existing documents to the HTML format. Thus, Web pages can be created by users without learning any voluminous coding system. The ease of page creation has helped fuel the Web's growth. Web pages are maintained at Web sites, which are computers or nodes that support the Web's HTTP protocol. The HTTP (Hyper Text Transport Protocol) is a communications protocol used to connect clients (for example, personal computers) to Web sites.
To date, the majority of users are people with technical or professional backgrounds who use expensive personal computers or work stations to access the Internet and the WWW. In order to increase usage and acceptance of the Internet and WWW by the public, it is necessary to provide systems which are less expensive and easier to use than personal computers or the existing Internet access devices.
The proper and efficient use of the great amount of information and services available on the Internet has the potential of providing Internet users with an environment in which to attend to all their needs and wants. In particular, those non-technical users interested in certain segments of the information and services available on the Internet could benefit tremendously from having their specific information or services of interest available to them without much of a searching effort. Moreover, such users would benefit greatly from being constantly and automatically updated on new information and services as they become available.
The shear size of the information available on the Internet and the Web has made it a necessity for users to efficiently and constantly sift through the available information in order to find and organize the information that is of interest to them. Stated differently, users realize that the availability of information itself is not useful unless the information is reduced to a manageable size and unless the information so reduced in size is of interest and of value to the specific user. According to IDC, the number of web pages will increase from approximately 925 million at the end of 1998 to over 13 billion by the end of 2003, representing a compound annual growth rate of 70%.
To date, the following strategies have been developed to assist Internet users:                Internet Directories. Internet directories generally list web sites by specific topics of interest and contain links to these sites. With the rapid growth of content available on the Internet, these directories are becoming increasingly difficult to build and update with a high level of quality. In addition, the creators of these directories often have limited relevant knowledge about the directories' particular topic areas.        Internet Search Engines. Internet search engines capture, store and index web site information in order to retrieve web site listings in response to user query. These software programs have a limited ability to determine the quality or relevance of the web sites they retrieve. Further, as the nature of the available content has become more difficult to classify, many companies offering search engines are being forced to employ significant editorial staffs to ensure that responses to queries are satisfactory. Search engines based on natural language have the added difficulty of accurately determining sentence syntax and nuances.        Internet Portals. Many traditional Internet directories and search engines have added interactive tools and features, such as weather, news feeds, stock portfolios, personal home pages, and non-proprietary content from other media. These portals provide Internet users with basic information and links on a broad range of topics. Because most portals have many similar tools and features and provide limited original content, there is little differentiation among them.        Topic-Specific Sites. More in-depth content is generally found on sites focused on particular topics where individuals knowledgeable about those topics create the content. Because these sites tend to be widely dispersed, Internet users may need to visit a number of other unaffiliated sites in order to satisfy their information needs.        User-Generated Content Sites. Many web sites generate and contribute relevant content. However, the quality of this content varies significantly and the content is frequently un-managed and poorly organized and presented. As a result, advertisers may be reluctant to entrust their brands to sites that rely upon user-generated content.        
Various “search engines”, such as Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, and AltaVista, among others, are known that permit a user to search for specific information. However, such search engines must be used on a daily basis to ensure that the updated information is accessed. Moreover, almost any search string results in a huge number of documents and the user would not know which documents have already been ruled out as being of no interest. Further, the search engines generally do not focus on particular sites that are of interest to the user; they search the entire Internet. The Internet is huge and complex. This is especially daunting to non-technical users who are unschooled in the vagaries of search techniques. The virtual environment object of this invention develops a better, more powerful and intuitive search engine based on semantic and cognitive profiling to allow for improved information retrieval on the Internet by non-technical users. The same Artificial Intelligence driven semantic engine that determines the meaning of user requests can be turned around and used to interpret the validity of query results that answer requests. Additionally data structures that support and store user oriented semantic relationships provide a readily accessible “web of knowledge”.
Since commerce is an inherent activity of human beings and an obvious part of life as we know it, it behooves us to develop a largely friction free mass commerce potential to get buyers and sellers together in a productive and mutually fulfilling experience. In order to do this, ways must be developed to reduce or remove the real or perceived barriers to commerce on the buyer's side such as high pricing, return hassles, credit card concerns, privacy protection, navigational difficulties and delayed gratification. On the sellers' side ways of dealing effectively with payment matters, the cost of customer service, inventory control costs, including the cost of goods sold and a full range of other business to customer and business-to-business concerns need to be adopted. In addition, strong models to help businesses and consumers deal effectively with business management issues that add to supplier costs must be developed.
None of the devices or methods available in the prior art, however, provides a way of integrating all available technologies together in order to provide a user friendly virtual environment which provides the user with an easy to use technological solution while at the same time taking advantage several available technologies. Thus, there is a need for a virtual environment and method of creating said environment which overcomes these and other deficiencies in the prior art.